


Command

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Series: Mascotverse [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Not Crisis Core Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth and Titus meet. In Wutai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Command

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to a_mere_trifle for proofreading! All remaining errors are completely my own.

There wasn't much that could shut up a few hundred men without a word spoken, and as far as Colonel Whitman knew, Scarlet was sitting this war out. So when the bitching, joshing, and actual conversations going on outside his tent got cut short one by one, he didn't mind admitting that it made his hackles rise in sheer paranoia. As far as he knew, the kid--the General--was still out on reconnaissance with Piper, hopefully learning which end of that oversized sword went into the enemy. So no matter what weird thing Sephiroth had done this time, at least he hadn't struck half the army dumb in the process.

Or so he hoped. And maybe he'd just let the maps take care of themselves for a minute and go see for himself.

Ducking out of the tent, he took a casual look around before his eyes sort of froze on the figure making a beeline right for him. The man--if you could _call_ it a man--didn't seem to be in any real hurry, but the sheer length of leg meant his casual amble would have forced any normal person to trot smartly to keep up. Looming head and shoulders above anyone else in camp, he had the glowing gold eyes of a monster or one of those SOLDIER-types, and while the uniform sort of bore out the second option, the sheer _size_ of the man had Whitman leaning more towards the first. And it wasn't like SOLDIERs were that common, really, but he thought he remembered...charcoals. That made this one a SOLDIER First Class, didn't it?

 _Like Sephiroth,_ he had time to think, but by then the two-legged behemoth had ambled to a halt right in front of him, sketching a lazy salute to go along with his faint little half-smile.

"At ease," Whitman said automatically, and never mind the fact that the SOLDIER looked plenty at ease already. "Can I help you?"

"Titus Thursson, SOLDIER First Class," the giant said, his deep voice already gravelly though he couldn't be far into his twenties. It was probably just his imagination that it could pass for a growl. "I'm supposed to report to General Sephiroth."

"Ah." That almost made sense, really. On paper, at least, the SOLDIERs looked to Sephiroth directly for their orders. "Well, I'm afraid you're a day early, but if you have any intelligence to report--"

The giant shook his head slowly, smile not dimming a notch.

Whitman stared. Oh, they wouldn't have. "You've...been attached to the General?"

One nod. The smile widened. Whitman could already feel a headache coming on.

"Right. Great. You do that," he muttered, shaking his head. What were those idiots back in Midgar _thinking?_ It was hard enough to get the men to take a boy general seriously without sending a giant to loom over his shoulder. And he didn't even want to think about how it was going to look when Thursson here decided to countermand one of Sephiroth's orders...if he could get the two of them working together at all. Inexperienced he might be, but Sephiroth was smart, Whitman had to give him that. Not that it took a genius to predict the pissing contests these two were going to get up to. Gods.

 _Leave me out,_ was what he wanted to say. Too bad he didn't have the luxury.

And everyone around them was still staring.

Glaring pointedly at troopers who abruptly remembered that they had better things to do, he glanced back at the SOLDIER with a consternated grimace. "No offense, but...they couldn't have sent anyone else?"

The smile grew and kept on growing. "I volunteered."

Oh, and that was just lovely, wasn't it?

***

Circling in from the hills and making their way towards the picket lines off Landing Point, the Flying Chocobos returned to camp in something approaching formation, looking as fresh as the morning they'd ridden out. It was something of a point of pride, Sephiroth had noticed, for soldiers to ignore the rigors of the field, but the Chocobos made it look easy, even under fire. The closest he'd heard to a complaint the entire time was a rather wistful mention of tea, or the lack thereof. It was almost enough to make him wish for a transfer.

Sephiroth didn't notice anything strange about the camp at first, barring a few odd looks in his direction. He was used to the stares, though he did wonder what he'd done that was so surprising. Perhaps a general really was meant to stay put, though it seemed to contradict any number of histories. It seemed a waste as well; they hadn't run into anything terribly challenging while they were on circuit, but he did feel as if he'd learned more in a week than he had in a year in the lab. Virtual environments were far too predictable compared to the real thing.

"Well, son, that was some fine riding," Piper said as they were dismounting, beaming with what looked like genuine approval. "And if you ever want to take another little stroll with us, you just say the word."

There were nods all around, open grins and a few murmurs of agreement from the more outspoken of the men. He didn't need Hojo to warn him not to let it go to his head; monster disposal didn't require a general, though he was efficient enough at it by now. He merely nodded back, saying, "Thank you. I look forward to training with you again."

"Just name the time and place, General; it'd be our pleasure. So, what do you think of Wutai now?"

He thought about that for a moment, organizing his thoughts to give as concise a report as possible, though the curious tilt of Draugr's head distracted him. After a week in the field, the bird was probably wondering why they were standing around when they could just as easily talk in the saddle. "Interesting," he said at last, absently stroking Draugr's warm feathers, slick as silk under his palm. "The terrain is so varied, I can see why the sweeping strategies Heidegger wanted to use haven't worked here. And knowing the land will be a greater advantage than perhaps it should."

"That's where we come in," Piper said with an easy shrug, leaning on his own mount's shoulder and watching Draugr with a smile. "There's no terrain a chocobo can't master, and we'll bring you back the tale of it, never you fear."

"Yes. I'll be sure to let you know where I am."

Piper arched a brow, but he didn't look surprised in the slightest. "So you don't intend to stay mewed up in a tent, then?"

Sephiroth shook his head, letting his hand rest on his bird's neck. "Draugr would get bored."

The Colonel laughed outright, but he sounded pleased, not the least bit derisive. "That he would, son; that he would. Listen. If you'd like, we could--"

The runner that jogged up to them didn't make himself obtrusive, but Sephiroth recognized him instantly as one of Colonel Whitman's messengers. Apparently Piper recognized him as well, because he caught himself before he could finish the thought, turning to eye the runner curiously.

"Excuse me, sirs," the messenger began, only a little out of breath, "but Colonel Whitman would like to meet with General Sephiroth at his earliest convenience."

Unusual. Whitman usually found him; Sephiroth couldn't recall ever being invited into the man's presence before. "Understood," he said, wondering what could have happened to change things. If a major assault had been launched in his absence, someone would have radioed in the news. Perhaps someone from Midgar had arrived to make an inspection. At least it wouldn't be Hojo; in his experience, Hojo never hid behind others' names when he summoned a person, enjoying too much the reluctance and fear his requests provoked. "Tell him I'll be along shortly."

"Yes, sir!" the runner replied, snapping a smart salute, and just like that he was gone again, weaving through soldiers and chocobos on his way up the hill to the command tents.

"A general's work is never done," Piper said with a commiserating shake of his head. "You'd think he was keeping lookout to see when you'd get back."

"Yes." He didn't doubt it.

All the same, he made Whitman wait until he'd settled Draugr comfortably in his temporary stall.

While he'd thought he was used to the stares of the soldiers, there was something different about the looks he got as he made his way to Whitman's tent: anticipatory, some more weighing than usual. Steeling himself against any surprise, he trained his eyes dead ahead and kept his chin up, his face carefully blank. Whatever spectacle they expected, he didn't intend to give it to them.

The guards on duty before Whitman's tent came to perfect attention at his approach, but their curious stares wavered towards him in a regrettable lapse of discipline as he passed between them. He wondered if the voices he could hear inside had anything to do with it, but it was only Whitman and Zinsner arguing again, Whitman wanting one thing, Zinsner arguing it couldn't be done, or at least not in that spot.

"Five miles upstream, Colonel," Zinsner was saying as Sephiroth ducked inside the tent. "That's ten miles out of your way, there and back. You can march an extra ten miles, can't you?"

"It's not the distance; it's the time. We need to get across that river as quickly as possible--"

"Well, you're not _going_ to get across the river from that point, bridge or no bridge. There's a whole nest of Ti-Lung right on top of where we'd need to build--"

"Ti-Lung?" Sephiroth asked, ignoring the map stretched between the two men for now.

"River snakes," Major Zinsner said without a pause, turning to him with his broad, scarred hands stretched wide. "Half the size of a Zolom but meaner than a Replicon. If you're worried about surprise, fighting a pack of those things is going to be louder than launching a major offensive, because bullets won't touch them. Except to make them angry, anyway. The people around here call them 'Leviathan's Children,' if that gives you any indication."

Sephiroth nodded thoughtfully, ignoring Whitman's grumble that Zinsner could have told him that _before._ Zinsner ignored him as well, focusing entirely on Sephiroth, silent now that he'd made his point. He didn't drop his still-spread hands, but he held Sephiroth's stare patiently, without judgment, waiting for orders. If Sephiroth told him to build the bridge where Colonel Whitman wanted it anyway, he'd do his best no matter what fire they came under, whether from the locals or the local monsters. The entire Corps of Engineers was like that, and at first they'd seemed like the only people outside the lab who made any sense.

"What if the Ti-Lung were gone?" he asked instead, having learned the hard way that while they might _try_ to follow his orders, they weren't nearly as indestructible as he was. "Quietly."

"Then I'd be happy to build whatever you wanted, General," Zinsner said with a shrug. "But what do you plan to do about the snakes?"

"I've trained against Zoloms before. If you'll follow after me, I'll clear the area."

"Zoloms, General?" Whitman asked intently. "Midgar Zoloms?"

"They said the swamps would be a good preparation for Wutai."

The Colonel laughed at that, but ruefully. "All right, sir. If you say you can do it, we'll give it a shot. _Monsters,_ " he grumbled, shaking his head. "I guess they knew what they were doing when they sent your shadow along."

Sephiroth frowned. "Shadow?"

***

"General's back," Stiegler offered with a faint grimace, boosting himself up onto a supply crate behind the command tents and glaring at Titus. "Sure you want to do this alone? We could split the guys up; no one'll notice if half the team fucks off to play honor guard for a week. It's not like they need six of us for one lousy fucking outpost anyway."

"It's fine," Titus replied, an amused half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he watched a lone figure climb the hill: a lean, tall boy in SOLDIER charcoals and a long black coat, silver hair already breaking a regulation or two. Considering how excitable his shorter bangs were, maybe he had to wear it long just to keep it from sticking up every which way.

"Yeah? Well, Gibson says he heard the kid was raised by Hojo. Fuck only knows what that spooky bastard's taught him."

"You're just paranoid." Now the climbing figure had gotten closer, but while people saluted smartly whenever he neared, the boy only nodded politely in response, more serious and self-contained than any kid his age Titus had ever met. Maybe Stiegler had a right to be nervous after all...and then some guy in a cavalry uniform came along, saluting with a warm grin that seemed to carry over into his greeting, stripes or no stripes on his shoulder. Piper's influence, definitely, but it didn't look like Sephiroth intended to take offense at the familiar air. Titus couldn't quite make out what was said at this distance, even with enhanced hearing, but his eyes were sharp enough to catch the surprise, swiftly-buried, that crossed Sephiroth's face.

"What I am is _well-informed,_ asshole. Fine. I'll take the boys upstream for a few days, and when we get bored, we'll come rescue you."

"Uh-huh."

"Or rescue the General. Gods know you scare _us_ sometimes, and we're used to you."

"You're going to feel so manly if me and the kid hit it off."

"Did I mention the 'asshole' thing?"

"Takes one," Titus said with a chuckle, standing away from the crate he'd been leaning on and nodding towards the tents. "Think I'll go on over and introduce myself."

"Only genuine fucking giant in the army, and he thinks he needs to introduce himself," Stiegler muttered pityingly, shaking his head. "We'll be thinking of you while we're off having fun."

"I'll tell Zinsner you said hello," Titus offered, giving a casual wave over one shoulder as he made his unhurried way over to the tents where Sephiroth had disappeared.

Odd to think that that kid was the person they'd all been modeled after. He'd expected the prototype to be older than them for one thing, and he wasn't about to discount the rumors that said the SOLDIER process had been toned down for the general public, that whatever Sephiroth had gotten, he'd gotten _more._ On the other hand, if Sephiroth had been living with the boosted strength and all the rest his entire life, that alone probably made him someone to be reckoned with.

The Hojo thing worried him, he wasn't going to lie about that, but he also wasn't going to pass judgment on anyone because of Hojo alone. He'd meet the kid first, see how things went from there, and take the word back to the others.

It wasn't like the whole of SOLDIER didn't already know they were going to be handed over to the kid eventually, but now that Sephiroth was shaping up to be a general, not just a mouthpiece, it was about time they figured out what kind of person was going to be calling the shots.

***

Intellectually Sephiroth knew that SOLDIER was supposed to be his, that he was the successful experiment that had made them both possible and desirable, at least in Shinra's eyes. In reality he'd never had much contact with them, even to spar. Hojo hadn't thought it necessary, warning Sephiroth not to get a false impression of his own limits by basing his on theirs. They were different, Hojo stressed time and time again, improved--at least from ordinary soldiers--but not superior.

Being told that he'd had a SOLDIER First Class assigned to him personally made him want to know why more than anything. Was the man expected to run interference or merely interfere? He would have liked to ask, but he didn't think Major Zinsner would know, and he wasn't sure Colonel Whitman would tell him. Then again, if he couldn't figure it out for himself--

Outside, the guards came stomping to a salute just before a long bar of light was thrown across the ground, the tent flap pushed aside to let in a man tall enough to be wary of the canvas roof. Sephiroth didn't need to be told that the man was a SOLDIER; the shine in bright gold eyes would have given the man away in an instant even without the sleeveless charcoal uniform of a SOLDIER First Class. Eyeing the man dispassionately, he noted the corded arms, the reinforced knuckles of gloved fists, the ruthlessly neat, military cut of his dark hair and the way the barely-there smile the man sported turned his angular face intimidating rather than friendly. It was entirely possible the man was used to using his height and obvious strength to cow those around him. On the other hand, the SOLDIER's gold eyes reminded him of Draugr's in some odd fashion, and he found that was enough to make him reserve judgment for the moment.

"Titus?" Major Zinsner surprised him by asking. "Don't tell me you're the General's new shadow." He actually sounded pleased, which seemed to startle Colonel Whitman.

The big SOLDIER nodded, smile widening a notch before he got it under control again and turned back to Sephiroth. "Titus Thursson, SOLDIER First Class, reporting for duty, sir."

"At ease," Sephiroth replied to the man's methodical salute, neither hurried nor insolently slow. "I'm not certain I have a duty for you to report for, Thursson...."

"I'm from Jotunheim," the man offered, as if it needed saying. "Just 'Titus' is fine."

Sephiroth nearly rejected the offer as too familiar, suspiciously so, only didn't he remember...? "Ah. You mean you're Titus, son of Thurs." No last name, not in the traditional sense, only a sampling of the man's family tree.

"Thurs, son of Mir, son of Magni," Titus agreed mildly, though his brows shot up as if he hadn't expected Sephiroth to know that. "We give the census bureau fits."

"I see. I hadn't heard we had many troops from Jotunheim," Sephiroth mentioned, regarding the man with more interest. What he'd taken at first for a fluke of genetics compounded by intensive training was commonplace for the people of Jotunheim, at least if he recalled his cultural studies correctly. "It appears that's a shame."

"We mostly keep to ourselves," Titus said with a shrug, his faint smile undimmed but gone entirely opaque. "But don't worry about putting me to work, sir; I'm just your shadow, after all."

Somehow he didn't think that was an admission of laziness, but he wasn't quite ready to dismiss the man as one of Hojo's creatures or Heidegger's spies, not just yet. "Can you ride?" he asked abruptly, flicking a glance over the man in an attempt to gauge his rather impressive mass. Could a chocobo carry such a rider? It didn't quite seem possible, though he'd learned the birds were even stronger than they looked.

"I've got a chocobo assigned, sir, if that's what you mean."

"Good. We'll be riding out tomorrow."

Now the man looked interested, not unwilling. "Sir?"

"There's a bridge that needs building, and there are snakes in the way."

"Got it," Titus said, his smile slowly growing. "I don't mind a few snakes."

***

Dawn came early on the coast, or maybe it was just that the rest of Wutai was so hilly, it was hard to tell when the sun was really up depending on where you'd bunked the night before. First light also saw half the camp in motion, either preparing to deploy or scrambling in support. Even half a year ago, Titus would have had to hike out to bed down with the Chocobos if he'd wanted to get any sleep, but he'd gotten used to the heightened sharpness of his senses, had desensitized himself to the normal sounds of camp. Then again, since making First Class, sleep had become something of a luxury. Not just because he didn't seem to need quite so much of it as before, but because there were always a hundred and one more important things he could be doing instead.

Such as wandering the camp like he didn't have a care--or orders, which was rarer--keeping his ears pricked for anything he might pick up about the kid they were serving under.

There wasn't much time for talk amongst the men as the plans Sephiroth had set in motion the afternoon before geared up to their final stage. There was the usual amount of grumbling from the regular troops, but he would have been more worried if there hadn't been; the day a Shinra grunt didn't think he could run a better war than his commanders would be the day Shinra stopped giving department heads bars and stripes. It was just morning talk, though, right up there with how bad the coffee was and at least it wasn't raining...yet.

Too young, that was a popular one where Sephiroth was concerned. Did things by the book. Never _ever_ cracked a smile. There were various theories on that, but the only one that sounded like it might go somewhere halfway interesting had been voiced where one of Piper's boys could hear it, which turned out interesting in itself. There had to be a story behind that, but the regular troops didn't know it and the cavalry wasn't talking, so all Titus could do was wait and continue to watch.

Just about the only thing he'd gleaned directly from Sephiroth the day before was that the kid knew how to give orders. He didn't think he'd ever been told to take a hike so politely.

 _"You're dismissed,"_ Sephiroth had said after telling him to be at the chocobo pens at oh-dark-thirty the next day, perfectly unruffled, and that was what made it so strange. Here this kid was, a good seven years his junior, not even fully-grown yet, and he just looked Titus square in the eye and told him what was what. There was a knack to getting people to do what they were told the first time, and Sephiroth had it in spades with that matter-of-fact tone of his, the confidence and certainty he wore like a second uniform. But if some people's faces were open books, Sephiroth's had been dipped in concrete and thrown into the bay for good measure. If Stiegler was right and the kid had been brought up by Hojo, having a perfect poker face that young shouldn't be any kind of surprise. It just sort of worried him what might be going on behind that unreadable face, and he wanted more than Piper's obvious support of the kid before he made up his mind to trust it.

On the other hand, the kid's reaction to his first meeting with Surt was a definite mark in his favor.

He'd made a point of checking out Sephiroth's bird when he'd saddled up his own, and he'd liked what he saw. Flashy didn't begin to cover it, but the black was definitely no parade mount, and if Sephiroth could actually handle that demon, it was no wonder he had the entire cavalry eating out of his hand. It was when Titus led his own mount up to where Sephiroth was waiting that he began to think there might be something here he could work with.

On being confronted with an enormous pink chocobo, most people tended to make two assumptions: that he'd been stuck with the rose by default, and that he was secretly embarrassed to be seen with anything that pink. Most people had also never seen Surt stomp a Nibel Wolf flat purely for the fun of it, and that was fine by him. It wasn't easy to get people to underestimate a guy his size when it came to anything but his smarts, and if they were going to assume he was as _dumb_ as a behemoth, he was going to let them go right on thinking that.

One pale brow arched as Titus ambled up with his oversized pink featherduster in tow, Surt plodding sleepily along like a plowbird heading off to the fields, but the kid just gave him a hard, weighing look, darted another glance at Surt, and said, "I take it he's faster than he looks."

"You'd be surprised," Titus agreed. Somehow, Sephiroth not needing the usual object lesson wasn't as disappointing as it should have been. "Sir," he added by way of greeting, glancing briefly past the kid's shoulder at the soldiers hurrying past. Not one of them looked like backup, or like they intended to stick around long enough to be volunteered. "Are we waiting for an escort?"

"No," Sephiroth replied, the faintest of frowns creasing his brow. "Major Zinsner counted less than a dozen Ti-Lung in the nest. It shouldn't require...." For a moment the frown deepened, the gaze that held his going assessing again. "It should be within the scope of two SOLDIERs First Class to handle," Sephiroth amended, though for the first time, that odd sense of bedrock certainty he projected seemed to waver.

"Most things are," Titus said with a shrug, patting Surt's neck. "Be a nice change not to have them underfoot."

There was definitely room for a mention or two of his height there--it should have been worth a smirk at least--but Sephiroth only nodded, turning to gather up the black's reins and swinging into the saddle. "We should get going. Zinsner will be following close on our heels, and I want to hold that point before they arrive."

There wasn't much he could say to that but "Yes, sir," and Surt gave him a curious look as he climbed into the saddle, chortling something low and soothing until he patted the rose's neck. He had to be missing something somewhere--like maybe the kid was really eighty and had come by the silver hair naturally--because he didn't have any other explanation for how someone could be that sober that young.

Hojo's fault, maybe. Or maybe the old saying about all work and no play was truer than he'd figured.

Whoever had taught the kid how to navigate through the wilderness had done a good job, at least. Landing Point itself was about as level as Wutai got, but the further they traveled from the encampment, the more interesting the terrain around them became. Rolling hills began to lump into domes and then peaks, the ground beneath them angling steeply and then falling just as abruptly away into valleys cut by the streams and rivers netting the island. Many of the wider fords already showed signs of Zinsner's work, but where armed opposition and monsters weren't an issue, bridges were child's play to the Corps.

It was shaping up to be a pretty quiet trip, though--the kid didn't seem to be much for conversation--and so far the only thing Titus had learned was that Sephiroth was a pretty decent rider. Which would have been fine if he'd been scouting for the Chocobos, but he doubted Stiegler and the others would be impressed to learn that their commanding officer had a textbook-perfect seat and steered with his legs, not the reins.

Clearing his throat, he waited for the kid to glance over and shrugged at the questioning look he'd been hoping for. "If you don't mind my asking, sir...do you do this often?"

"Monster extermination?"

"The hands-on approach." Not that he had any problem with it--being stuck in a command tent all day would have been torture--but he couldn't think of many generals who'd just pick up a sword and wade right in. If Titus hadn't happened along when he had, he didn't doubt that the kid would have made this trip on his own.

"It needed to be done quick and quiet," Sephiroth replied, and Titus only realized how much more inscrutable the kid could get when the tiny bit of openness that had been there in Sephiroth's expression closed off, wary and remote. "Regular troops wouldn't have been adequate for the task."

"No, sir. Probably not. Just seems like it ought to be a job for SOLDIER, is all."

He tried not to watch the kid too closely, didn't care to give away how interested he was in Sephiroth's answer, but he didn't miss the measuring stare he was shot in turn. Sephiroth didn't point out that he was just as much a SOLDIER as Titus, if not more, and Titus had sort of set himself--and Sephiroth--up for that one. For one long moment, he didn't think he was going to get an answer at all.

"I've hunted Zoloms before," Sephiroth said at last, only it didn't sound like a boast. "I've never fought a Ti-Lung, and I've never sparred with a SOLDIER."

When he got it, it was all he could do to keep the surprise--and the grin--from his face.

"Fair enough, sir," he said, nodding once at his general. "Guess that means it's up to me to show you what a SOLDIER First Class can do."

***

There were ten Ti-Lung haunting the narrowest point of the river, though it was impossible to tell at first. More silver than blue, they were rarely still, weaving in and out of each other's coils like a knot of eels. The largest one--a female if the others' webbed ruffs were any indication--swam more sluggishly than the others, drifting lazily along the river bottom as her escort snapped at shadows. She was perhaps thirty feet long, thick as a steel drum, and her oversized skull had clearly evolved to support the heavy musculature of her massive jaws. The nine males were hardly smaller, and the fangs bared by their irritable snapping were nearly as long as his forearm.

"That's a shame," Titus said as he swung down from his mount, and Sephiroth glanced over at him curiously. "I liked these boots."

If the man was at all nervous about the size of their targets, he was keeping it to himself. Sephiroth would have been inclined to dismiss it as bravado but for the light of anticipation in the SOLDIER's eyes, the odd way the man's covert watchfulness had relaxed abruptly once the matter of fighting had been brought up earlier. He supposed it made sense for a SOLDIER to enjoy combat; it was what they'd been engineered for, after all. What puzzled him was that the man seemed content to hang back now instead of charging in, not out of cowardice but from an unexpected willingness to follow his lead.

As he drew his sword, he looked the man over again, sizing him up this time not as a potential spy but a potential ally. "I should be the faster of us," he said, storing carefully away Titus' arched brow over that, the tiny quirk to his smile. So, like his bird, this one was faster than he looked. With a man of his size, that could be very useful to know. "I'll draw them out of the water."

"I'll be ready."

Nodding once, he turned and started for the bank. He wasn't certain how effective fists would be against monsters that shook off bullets, but he was willing to give the man a chance to demonstrate.

He'd assumed he'd need to wade into the river itself before the nest noticed him, but he was still some yards away from the bank's edge when a gunmetal head surfaced, the webbed ruff and the darker tendrils of the river snake's beard throwing a bright spray as it shook itself warningly. Another head popped up beside it, then another, until nine pairs of wide green eyes were fixed on him in mindless animal fury.

Very little luring was required to draw them out of the water. His mere presence was enough to enrage the nest, and as they unspooled themselves from their protective knot around their mate, the river frothed and boiled with the whipping flex of their coils. The first arrowed out of the water without slowing as it hit the bank, jaws gaping wide. Its ruff flared to expose a corona of bright green spots the exact color of its eyes, the effect both startling and impressive.

Leaping back out of the way, he hesitated just long enough to see whether the snake would lose momentum when he failed to be frozen by terror before retreating again, away from Titus but also away from the bank. The nest didn't seem to have noticed the other SOLDIER yet, and he hoped to reduce their numbers to a more manageable level before they realized he had reinforcements.

They really were quite remarkably tenacious. Minor injuries roused them to fury, and out of the water's drag, those heavy jaws snapped shut with a speed and power that demanded respect. There was no strategy to their attacks, however, not even animal cunning; Zinsner had described them as 'mean,' but they fought with something closer to berserker rage, even hindering each other with their single-minded need to tear him to pieces. When he cut the first one down, its thrashing tangled the second long enough for him to half decapitate it as it was turning to snap at its brother. Sidestepping a third, he let it run itself onto Masamune's blade as he turned, their combined momentum driving the edge of the sword through scale and then bone, severing its spine. While he was busy with the fourth, a fifth stretched itself tall on his right, drawing up like a rearing cobra.

Before it could strike, its head was suddenly bowed down by the weight of the man who'd landed squarely atop its snout. Mentally adding 'agile' to the list of Titus' unexpected qualities, Sephiroth watched as the man fisted one gloved hand in the spines of the Ti-Lung's spread ruff for purchase, the other pulling back, punching down, and connecting with a muffled crack and a dull, meaty thud.

Eyes blossoming with blood, the Ti-Lung jerked once and dropped like a stone.

It wasn't until her last defender was dispatched that the female left the water, a hoarse, wet hiss like a mute roar sounding as she came. Where the males had been smooth-sided, she flared spiny ridges that looked sharp enough to cut as she heaved herself up onto the bank, and her armor looked thicker, heavy enough to slow her down on dry land. Throwing a fast glance at Titus, he found the man already watching him, and some inner certainty told him the SOLDIER had read his intentions, would follow him in this as well.

Though the memory of Titus calmly standing his ground as the last Ti-Lung barreled straight for him would ambush him at odd moments for some time to come, at the moment his only focus was in waiting for the right moment to intercept and strike, driving Masamune into the soft corner of the creature's wide-open mouth and sideways, through, down. Jaw half unhinged, the river snake faltered and writhed until Titus' fists left her stunned, slowed her thrashing long enough for Sephiroth to finish the job.

Though the fight seemed to have taken no time at all, already he could hear the approach of many trucks, and he glanced up the hill to see a convoy sporting Shinra's red diamond coming to meet them.

"Nice timing," Titus said, nodding at the trucks. "Not that they wasted any time getting here."

"It's more difficult to keep Major Zinsner out of the fighting than it is to get him to it in the first place," Sephiroth admitted. If he hadn't insisted on a half-hour's head start, the man would probably have been trying to build his bridge around them while they were still dealing with the snakes.

Titus' chuckle startled him; he hadn't meant that as a jest.

"Too true, sir. Stiegler'll thank you for it once he hears; Rocket Town boys tend to stick together."

Sephiroth frowned. "Stiegler?"

That faint little smile curled up slowly into a grin. "Yes, sir. Another one of your Firsts. You should be meeting him any day now."

He nodded, but he perhaps didn't give that the attention it deserved, caught more by how Titus had said that than what he'd actually said. _His_ Firsts. They were his, weren't they? Only in name at the moment, true, but perhaps he could change that, if he could only be certain of where their loyalties lay.

Mulling that over, he noted absently the way Titus moved to stand a pace behind him and to the right as the convoy arrived and began spilling troops and Corpsmen onto the riverbank, the ground churned and bloody in places but no longer contested.

"Good work, sir," Zinsner said in passing, nodding to Titus as well, the carcasses on the bank ignored unless they happened to be underfoot. He had to yell a few times to catch the attention of some of the soldiers, too many of whom were wasting time staring wide-eyed at Sephiroth, then at Titus.

And then quickly hurrying on their way, heads down, shoulders hunched.

He glanced sidelong at the man, but Titus was only standing there with his arms folded across his chest, his expression really quite mild. Content, possibly, or at least in no hurry to be elsewhere.

Puzzling. Perhaps he'd have time to consider it once they pushed the enemy back and returned to camp.

***

"So?" Stiegler asked as he stuck his head inside Titus' tent a week later, letting himself in as Titus looked up from his letter-writing with a smile. "Which one of you am I rescuing? You or the kid?"

"Neither," Titus replied, sounding so pleased with himself Stiegler did a double-take, brows climbing towards his hairline. He'd expected to find Titus smiling, true, but the guy had a pretty sick sense of humor, laughed at shit that made other people want to just chuck the rest of the day and crawl back into bed. He wasn't expecting to find the guy practically chortling, happy as a tonberry in a cutlery shop.

"Okay, what the fuck? You didn't break him, did you? I mean, if you're secretly running the army now, I just want you to know, you can transfer me to Costa del Sol anytime you like."

Titus snorted, shaking his head. "Ease up. The General's all right."

Now he knew he was in the wrong tent. He wasn't sure, because he'd never heard it coming out of Titus' mouth before, but that had sounded an awful lot like respect.

"All right?"

"Mm-hmm."

" _How_ all right?"

Titus considered for a moment then shrugged. "Not sure yet," he said, "but I'm looking forward to finding out."

"Huh," Stiegler said, gnawing thoughtfully at his lower lip. Well, hell. "Guess we'd better make ourselves useful, then."

Titus grinned. "Well," he said, "since you're volunteering...."

***

There wasn't much that could gather half the camp into one place and have them cheering like that to boot, and the last time Colonel Whitman had checked, not only was Scarlet _still_ sitting out this war, but they were a long, long way from the Honeybee Inn. It'd been a long week, though, and even with a few victories and miles of newly-claimed territory under their belts, things had been quiet around camp, everyone a little tired or homesick or both. Even the arrival of a squad of SOLDIERs--Firsts and Seconds, all of them--hadn't been more than a seven-hour sensation after folks figured out that it was really just Sephiroth who was the weird one.

Drumming his fingers on the map table briefly, Whitman heaved a sigh a moment later and rose from his chair, heading resignedly for the tent flap. He didn't need to know what was going on to know that Sephiroth was somehow the cause of it, the way he seemed to be responsible for every unexpected commotion these days. And to think he'd once dismissed the boy as too quiet, practically invisible.

He was certainly visible now, what with half the army gathered around to watch as he was circled by a pair of SOLDIERs, one carrying a sword that looked like it might weigh as much as one of the cadets, boots and all, the other swinging a polearm as he tried to close with the kid. _Tried_ being the operative word there. He'd never seen anything move as fast as those three, and it was hard to keep track of them as they dodged, feinted, briefly came together in a flurry of blows and split apart again, the two SOLDIERs grinning, Sephiroth calm and unflustered still. And completely in his element.

It wasn't hard to spot the General's shadow even across the impromptu dueling ring, considering that the man stood head and shoulders above anyone else, and it somehow didn't surprise him to see the oversized SOLDIER watching the others with the same maddening little smirk he'd flashed that first day, _knowing_ the chaos he'd be bringing with him and enjoying every moment of it. It was the respectful nod the giant gave Sephiroth when the boy disarmed his opponents that sent Whitman's brows arching towards his hairline, because that actually looked genuine. And he'd just about bet he wasn't the only one who'd noticed it.

"I'll be damned," he muttered, shaking his head. First the cavalry--first Zinsner and the Corps, if he was being honest--and now the SOLDIERs.

Maybe, just maybe, they'd gotten a real general out of the deal after all.

**Author's Note:**

> So, generally my mental image of PresentDay!Titus is Hugh Jackman. Playing Wolverine. With flatter hair, about a foot taller, and twice as broad in the shoulders. But for the purposes of this fic, Seph is probably 14-15, Titus is roughly 21-22, so do your best to imagine a younger Supersized!Hugh Jackman. :D


End file.
